


Playing With Fire

by Turacoverdin



Category: Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 | Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World (Anime)
Genre: Crack-ish, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, gen or shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29939928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turacoverdin/pseuds/Turacoverdin
Summary: “Heeeey, Reinhard.” Subaru sidles up to the man in question, who appears to be staring blankly at a flower. Reinhard turns around and smiles at Subaru, calm and graceful and soft. That smile falters when he sees the flaming horse on Subaru’s shoulder.
Relationships: Natsuki Subaru & Reinhard Van Astrea
Comments: 20
Kudos: 115





	Playing With Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Only_Slightly_Obsessed (A_Stressed_Cupcake)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Stressed_Cupcake/gifts).



> here you go! it's still technically early, yeah? :3
> 
> this is a part of a gift fic exchange with only_slightly_obsessed (a_very_stressed_cupcake)! check out their fics—they do excellent h/c and angst.
> 
> make sure youve got work skins on, if theyre not on

Subaru’s wandering around the woods alone, as you do, when he stumbles across it.

_It’s cute,_ is his first thought when he sees it. Cute like Puck. Like that little puppy at the village. Like those rabbits.

_OH SHIT,_ is his second thought, because Subaru has had very bad experiences with cute things.

He turns and scrambles away, on his hands and knees because he did literally stumble across it. The adorable little thing follows, quickly, jumping onto his chest and freezing him in place. Not literally freezing, though, because it is very, very hot.

It is so hot that it is on fire.

The crispy horse creature doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that it’s on fire, though. It’s surprisingly not crispy, actually—the fire doesn’t seem to be hurting it. It’s not really a horse, either, because it looks more like a cross between a horse and a mouse and a dog. It’s got hooves and a long, horsey face, but it’s weirdly blocky and squat, and the more Subaru looks at it the less like a horse it seems. Its hooves are strange and segmented, for one, and its tail looks like a cross between a lion’s and an elephant’s. Also, it’s on fire, and it’s hovering about an inch about Subaru’s skin.

The horse-thing-but-not-really opens its mouth. Subaru is perhaps hyperventilating, just a little bit. And so what if he is? Hyperventilation when faced with a fiery-horse monstrosity is a completely normal response. 

“ANOMALY. DETECTED,” the horse thing blares. It talks. That’s terrifying. Subaru is terrified. “I, MELAKUERA. SHALL. REMOVE.”

And then the creature—Melakuera?—unhinges its mouth and spits fire at Subaru like a very very small flamethrower or an extremely miniature dragon or a completely normal-sized lighter.

Subaru blinks, remarkably not dead.

The creature stomps one of its little feet. “PERISH,” it commands, spewing more fire. And by spewing, Subaru means creates a tiny fire that seems appropriate for a small candle.

Subaru stares at the thing, still very much not perished. The fire flickers out.

The creature is very, very small. Subaru could whap it away with a flyswatter. Its fire, too, is very, very small. Hovering right above Subaru’s chest, as the creature is, its flames leave him unsinged.

The creature makes a sound like a crackling fire. “REMOVAL. DELAY. WITCH. AUTHORITY. ERADICATION IMPOSSIBLE. STRENGTH NEEDED. OBSERVE.” And then it sits down on Subaru’s chest. Above Subaru’s chest. It’s weird.

“Um,” says Subaru. “So...are you going to kill me or not? Please don’t. Or at the very least, give me a warning or something so that I can run away.”

“ERADICATION IMPOSSIBLE. STRENGTH NEEDED. DELAY,” repeats the little creature. “THOU. PROCEED.”

_Thou..proceed_? _Thou_ means _you,_ right? And _delay_ sounds good, for now. Subaru is fine having his death delayed. Warily, Subaru sits up, trying very hard to maintain distance between himself and the flaming almost-horse. The little creature floats, hovering with him to rest above Subaru’s shoulder. There it perches, radiating heat. “PROCEED,” it commands.

“Excuse you, Ponyta,” Subaru huffs, standing up. The creature had given him a name, but Subaru has already kind of forgotten it, and Ponyta fits better.

He’s mostly stopped hyperventilating. The creature doesn’t seem to be aggressive, and its threat display hadn’t actually hurt, so he’s probably in the clear for now. He’d rather not risk angering it by batting it away, though. Plus, he’s not quite sure that he can touch it without hurting himself. “You can’t just barge in here and tell me what to do,” Subaru complains in the absence of flicking the little thing’s forehead. “You’re tiny.”

“THINE INSOLENCE UNDESIRED. PROCEED. FORWARD.” Ponyta shifts around on Subaru’s shoulder. Subaru flinches hard at the change in heat, then internally scolds himself for doing so.

“Ugh, you’re so bossy,” Subaru bemoans. He starts walking, though. He wants to find someone that can tell him what this little thing is. Someone who can get rid of it, if necessary. Someone who won’t anger or agitate the beast.

Subaru knows exactly who to find.

“Heeeey, Reinhard.” Subaru sidles up to the man in question, who appears to be staring blankly at a flower. Reinhard turns around and smiles at Subaru, calm and graceful and soft. That smile falters when he sees the flaming horse on Subaru’s shoulder.

“Subaru,” Reinhard says, still calm but now alert and coiled with energy. “Are you in danger?”

_In danger?_ Who’s in danger from this little horse? Sure, Subaru’s terrified, but—“Hey, I could get rid of this guy with a fly swatter!” Subaru crosses his arms. Ponyta hisses in annoyance. Rude little horse. “In danger. Hmph. Now maybe I won’t tell you, because you’ve insulted me.”

Reinhard blinks, slow. He looks mildly taken aback, as he should. Subaru’s going to tell him what’s going on anyways, because he’s Reinhard, but still! Have some tact, Reinhard. But not too much tact, because then Subaru would be unable to cope with it. “I...apologise,” Reinhard says, still very slow. Maybe he’s in shock? Things tend to slow down for Subaru when he’s in shock. They speed up, though, when he's stressed, like right now. “Why...is there a small great spirit riding on your shoulder?”

“Great spirit?” Subaru cranes his neck to look at the flaming horse. That explains the shock, a bit. Reinhard’s too cool to be surprised by a normal flaming miniature horse. But a great spirit—those are pretty important, right? “Ponyta’s a great spirit?” That seems a bit messed up. It’s so small, for one. And so incompetent. “But it’s so weak. No offense, Ponyta.” Eh, no matter. “We’re buddies now.”

“Buddies...now,” Reinhard repeats. He seems surprised. Maybe he’s still stuck on the great spirit thing. Subaru doesn’t really know why—he himself has charmed at least two great spirits, and he’s not Reinhard, who’s basically perfect. “Are you not already contracted to your Beako?”

_Your Beako._ “Hah, you’re so formal. Yeah, me and Beako are contracted. Ponyta’s just hanging around, I guess.” Subaru shrugs.

“STRENGTH NEEDED,” Ponyta roars tinnily for the fourth or fifth time. He’s been repeating it for the walk to Reinhard. Luckily it wasn’t a long walk—Reinhard and Felt are visiting the mansion for some political reasons that Subaru doesn’t really care about. He barely knows the name of the country he’s in—he can be excused for not quite knowing what’s going on, he thinks.

That’s why Subaru was going on the walk, too—Emilia was busy signing paperwork with Felt, and since Subaru can’t read he wasn’t much help. Reinhard, too, appears to have been kicked out of the paper-work signing room, probably because he was being too overbearing.

“You’re trying to kill me,” Subaru points out intelligently, in response to Ponyta’s demand. “Why would I want to give you more strength? You should be giving me strength, for putting up with you.”

Reinhard coughs into his fist. “Subaru,” he starts delicately. “A great spirit attempting to kill you counts as being in danger.”

Subaru waves his hand. “Nah, it’s fine. Ponyta’s been charmed by me. It’s all good.” It’s not really all good, but Reinhard’s here now so it should be good enough.

"You just said that it’s trying to kill you, present tense,” Reinhard argues nicely. He does everything nicely. He’s such a nice guy.

“ERADICATION IMPOSSIBLE,” Ponyta interjects. “STRENGTH NEEDED. PROVIDE SUSTENANCE.”

“See? It’s given up.” Subaru hopes it has, at least. “What do you eat, anyways? We’re not going to have to burn anything down, right?”

Ponyta is suspiciously silent.

Subaru considers this. “I’ve always wanted to play as a fire mage…” He looks at Reinhard speculatively. “Do you have a divine protection for this?” He blinks, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “Wait, do you have a divine protection of perfect marshmallow toasting?”

“Subaru, I’m not sure that I can condone this,” says Reinhard, cruelly deciding to let Subaru be stuck wondering whether he has a divine blessing of perfect marshmallow toasting or not.

“Seriously? You’ve never engaged in a bit of light arson?” Subaru isn’t too surprised, but he’d thought that burning things was a fairly universal pastime. Maybe not; Subaru only tried lighting things on fire when he’d burnt all of his materials and textbooks from middle school. Reinhard probably would have kept all of his middle school materials. “What a goody two-shoes. Right, Ponyta?”

“JUDGEMENT: POWERFUL. BENIGN. CAGED. BALANCE,” declares Ponyta.

“See? It agrees with me. Now c’mon, we’re going to set some stuff on fire.” Subaru grabs Reinhard’s wrist and tows him away, to little resistance.

Finding flammable material is not hard. Clothes, for example, are flammable. Finding a good place to burn things is also not difficult; the mansion has many fireplaces.

Subaru chucks another one of the shirts into the fire. Ponyta rolls around in the blaze. It’s getting bigger, and gradually more horselike; its segmented toes have fused into more familiar hooves and its posture has shifted towards the equine instead of canine. It has occurred to Subaru that he is maybe making Ponyta stronger so that it can kill him, but Reinhard’s here so he should be fine.

“That does not look like a no-longer usable outfit,” Reinhard says a bit pointedly. He’s got a pile of wood next to him, which Subaru has been ignoring. There’s no use wasting good timber on Ponyta.

Subaru hefts the expensive-looking material and laughs nervously. “It’s going to a better place,” he says, chucking the last of Roswaal’s shirts into the fire. Ponyta snorts approvingly.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where did you find this spirit?”

“Around,” Subaru answers flippantly, now feeding the last of Roswaal’s pants into the fire. He’s almost out of fuel. How unfortunate. “I just stumbled across it.”

“You really are a magnet for trouble,” Reinhard mutters.

Subaru straightens up. “Rude! My life’s been a bit more chaotic than most, I guess,” he admits, “but calling me a trouble magnet is a bit cruel, don’t you think?” He’s certainly not doing any of it on purpose. If given the chance, he’d totally run away.

“Subaru, not many people can say that they just stumbled across a Great Spirit,” Reinhard says patiently.

“CORRECTION,” Ponyta contributes helpfully. “MINESELF. OBSERVE. THOU.”

“Hey!” Subaru frowns at Ponyta. “You didn’t decide to observe me until after you’d tried to kill me.” He pauses as a thought strikes him. “Wait, were you looking for me?”

Ponyta climbs out of the fire. It is now the size of a very large dog. It’s rather intimidating. “PROVIDE SUSTENANCE.”

Subaru frowns. It didn’t answer his question. There’s not much he can do about it, though, so instead he asks, “What’s the magic word?”

“ERADICATION.”

“No.”

“YES.”

“Fine.” Subaru sticks his tongue out at the spirit, then turns to Reinhard and hitches a thumb towards the door. “Onwards, ho!”

“NOT. SUSTENANCE,” Ponyta says petulantly.

“What are you talking about? The sun is the biggest source of fire there is!” Subaru splays out on the grass. Reinhard delicately sits down besides him.

“ACCEPTANCE. STAY HERE. OBSERVATION.” Ponyta sits down, too. Subaru smirks a bit. His unbeatable logic, back at it again.

Subaru crosses his arms behind his head, staring up at the sky. It’s a sunny day, but not a warm one. If anything, it’s chilly. “Ponyta, come over here,” he whines. If he’s going to have a potentially-murderous horse following him around, he may as well get some use out of it. “You’re warm.”

“THY. HEATSOURCE. MINESELF. NOT.” Ponyta does not move. Rude.

Reinhard pats Subaru’s arm. Subaru blinks and twists to look at him. “Would you like a blanket?”

Subaru sits up a bit. “Can you do that? Just make a blanket out of nothing?”

“You have unrealistic expectations of my ability,” Reinhard says.

“That’d be a useless superpower, anyways,” Subaru admits, lying back down. He’d take Return By Death over Spontaneous Blanket Creation.

“...I do have the divine protection of not confusing salt with sugar.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

Subaru laughs. “Man. Now I want divine protections.” Not confusing salt and sugar would have been very helpful during his first few loops at the mansion. And that one time he was worried about ghosts and instead attracted a whole bunch of ants. That sucked. “How do you get them, anyways?”

“Od Laguna.” Reinhard looks a bit...strange when he says the name. He’s frowning, Subaru realises, ever so slightly.

Subaru squints at him. He didn’t know that Reinhard could frown. “What’s that?”

“No one really knows…” Reinhard trails off, then refocuses on Subaru. “Say, you don’t have any divine protections, Subaru?”

“Nope! Not a one! I’m playing with cheats off,” Subaru boasts. Well, he kind of is. He frowns and brings his hand to his chin. “Does respawn count?”

“I don’t know what you mean by respawn, but that surprises me. Surely your timing is not natural,” Reinhard prods gently.

Subaru lets his hands fall back limp to his side. He doesn’t really want to talk about this. He doesn’t know where the line is between too little information and too much. He’s suddenly very, very tired. He’d done a lot of walking in the woods, and the flaming horse spirit threatening to kill him is exhausting. “Don’t strain your pretty little head thinking too hard about it.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

Subaru sputters. “You’re—anyways! I’m tired. I’m going to sleep now. Good night.”

“....It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“ _I'm taking a nap_.”

“...Sleep well.”

Subaru wakes up calm. He shifts to look at the sky—the sun’s gone down, but he still feels warm. He then promptly realises that he had gravitated towards Reinhard in his sleep and was almost completely sprawled on top of the sleeping knight. Also, Ponyta, lighting up the darkness like a bonfire, was the size of a draft horse.

Subaru deals with the more important issue first and quickly untangles himself from Reinhard. Luckily, Reinhard doesn’t seem to wake up, which is good because Subaru is very, very embarrassed. Also, what sort of knight just falls asleep when he’s supposed to be keeping watch over the nearby murderous great spirit? Subaru is very disappointed in Reinhard.

Once he’s free, he turns to look at Ponyta.

“STRENGTH. PARTIALLY. RECOVERED.” Ponyta stands. “OBSERVATION COMPLETE.”

Subaru scoots back towards Reinhard. “You’re, uh, not going to kill me now, right?”

"ERADICATION IMPOSSIBLE." Ponyta dips its head. "GRATITUDE. FOR. THINE. ASSISTANCE. OF. MINESELF.” And then it casually turns into a ball of fire and launches itself into the sky.

“That was weird,” Subaru says aloud. “Could’ve been worse, though.” It could have been way, way worse.

“Oh.” Reinhard makes a quiet sound. Subaru jumps, turning to see him sit up and smile. Reinhard’s got grass in his mussed hair, but he still looks unfairly pretty. Subaru is close enough to see all of it in excruciating detail. His skin is flawless. How is that possible? Isn’t he supposed to be a teenager? Reinhard observes, “It’s surprisingly polite.”

Subaru eyes him suspiciously, scooting back a bit because he no longer has to hide behind Reinhard’s superior everything skills. That sounded like he’d been listening—like he’d been awake. “Wait, were you awake the whole time? No, don’t answer that—spare me my dignity. Ahem. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ponyta was pretty bossy. Although, I guess as spirit’s go, that’s the norm… Beako was much ruder when I first met her. Throwing me out of a window, tch.”

Reinhard smiles faintly at Subaru’s tirade, then tilts his head. “Why do you call it Ponyta?”

Subaru shrugs. “It’s a flaming horse, so it’s appropriate. Plus, it sounds better than Melakuero, or whatever it said its name was.”

“Mela—” Reinhard pales. His fingers curl around his sheathed sword. “That was Melakuera? The presumed-dead great spirit of fire?”

“That’s what it said,” Subaru confirms, standing and stretching. So it was probably another horrifying, cataclysm-class being that he just narrowly escaped. Fun. At least he got to set some of Roswaal’s clothes on fire. “I’m hungry. Let’s go.”

“Melakuera,” Reinhard repeats to himself, disbelieving. “Truly a trouble magnet.”

Reinhard was very helpful for Subaru’s peace of mind during the whole ordeal, so he generously pretends he didn’t hear that. Subaru can be very generous.

For example, later that day, when Melakuera breaks into Subaru’s bedroom and sets his rug on fire, he only throws two vases at it instead of three. Subaru’s nice like that.

**Author's Note:**

> part 3 of writing stressed subaru like a kid on a sugar high


End file.
